


Stories from a son of a bitch

by SwordSoup



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Homophobia, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, M/M, Suicide Attempt, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 05:59:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18162266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwordSoup/pseuds/SwordSoup
Summary: Jake Denver knew Klaus Hargreeves was crazy, when back in Vietnam he’d tell everyone stories of The Umbrella Academy and the children with powers associated with it.After years and years and years, he’s not so sure Klaus was really crazy at all.





	Stories from a son of a bitch

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should be updating my other fix but I HAD to write this! The idea just popped into my head and I really wanted to do it!

Everyone thought that Klaus was just a little crazy, when he came in the middle of the night and didn’t know what year it was, or how to load or shoot his gun, or what he was fighting for. Everyone thought he was just a bit more crazy when Klaus “talks-to-himself-like-an-idiot-but-still-remains-likable” Hargreeves started spouting stories every night, without fail. He told them all about how he had come from the future, and he had magical powers. “The curse,” he had called it. “Of seeing the dead.” 

The Umbrella Academy was what he’d dubbed his fictional story, and the guys in his division had laughed with him, as he wove tales of a man who had crazy strength, and held a stick up his ass at all times. Of the boy who’s knives never missed their target, and held his breath for hours at a time. Apparently, Klaus has decided that character would be the vigilante of the family, and everyone had laughed when he told them all how much of a mama’s boy he really was. 

He told them about the pretty actress who influenced people with a simple rumor, and himself, Klaus Hargreeves, Seance, the most gorgeous and famous of them all. 

(Also known as - the crackhead who found himself too funny. It was a joke in the division, by the second round of stories.)

Then there was Five, the egotistical and ridiculously intelligent midget who flew through time and teleported through space. And Ben, poor poor Ben, was the story Klaus laughed about the most, even though that character dies a tragic death. He’d got “beasties under his skin,” is how Klaus had described it, and the “ailment caught up with him.” 

The normal girl was last. His smile had dipped slightly during this tale, and all he had to say was: “she was quiet. Normal. Painfully under-average and _ignored._ Emphasis on ignored, cause we all were.” 

All of it was passed off as Klaus being a goofball, an egotistical and silly goofball who always tried to lighten everyone’s spirit in the wake of all the destruction. Even when Allen, the youngest of them all at only 18 had died, he spun stories of the Umbrella Academy without fail to him until he had passed on, and then continued to, while staring hollowly at a random corner of the tent and murmuring to it every so often. 

Then, Klaus had killed himself. 

Dave, the guy that Jake and  _ only Jake  _ knew for sure was Klaus’s soulmate, died, brutally, shot in the chest while behind a sandbag. Klaus’s screams for medic were terrifying, and his silence was even worse, when he had drove back to base with blood all over his body and absence staining his eyes. 

They’d all rushed outside, guns blazing, when they heard gunshots, only to find Klaus with a hole in his chest and a gun lax in his hands. 

No one called him a coward or a faggot or a pussy. They all just went their ways and grieved. 

They didn’t have anyone to send him home to. They couldn’t  _ find _ anyone _.  _ But still, he was sent back to America, with Dave and countless others with that stupid bulky mysterious probably drug filled briefcase he was always towing about. 

Halfway to America, his body had disappeared, along with the briefcase, and Jake had vowed to kill whoever had dared to steal the jokester and the  _ light  _ of the camp away for no reason that he could discern.

With his stories gone, everything else seemed dulled. The nights were even darker and the mud was even thicker, and Jake felt like he might just drown underneath the weight of it all. He nearly did, under the weight of his body counts, of the heavy rains and his friends corpses and his guilt. 

In the end, Jake was the only one left alive of his division who had met Klaus. No one else would he there to remember all the stories he’d told him, and Allen, and Dave, and Jim and Richard and Clarence and Zeke and all the others who’d passed through, as newbies and as oldies and now, as dead. 

He’d held onto a few momentos during his life, of the war. His tattoos, that all of his closest friends from he division had. They’d gone out to some shitty tattoo parlor drunk off their asses one night and gotten them done by the moonlight and the dimly lit bulbs of the cheap and cigarette smell filled building. He had his medals, some of his clothes, his boots, a few little bits of junk he’d collected in the jungle. And of course:

He’d kept the stories. 

The moment he got home he’d written them all down, to keep their legacy alive. He’d never sell it - of course not. It was too private, but just keeping it with him was enough. The pages were frayed and stained now, withered with age and use, but he still kept it with him at almost all times.

Then, when those  _ stupid _ kids had been born with their  _ stupid _ powers in 1989 and finally debuted a few years afterwards, he thought he was finally going as crazy as poor Klaus. 

_ The Umbrella Academy,  _ was what Reginald  _ Hargreeves  _ was calling it. They were all there.

The strong one.

The knives one.

The rumor one.

The teleporting one.

The monster one. 

The ordinary one.

The….  _ The Klaus one.  _

He’d gone white as a sheet when he’d watched that bank robbery on the tv, and leaned forward so far his back cracked horribly, and then those kids walked out and stood…

And he knew  _ immediately  _ which was Klaus. The tall one, skinny and with a sly smirk, pale, black hair, leaning over and cracking a joke into the blood soaked boy’s ear until he cracked a half smile. 

So, he got obsessed with them. He read all the news and the tabloids, even the stupid tween magazines. He kept up with how they looked when they got older. He saw that the teleporter one - Number  _ Five - _ the one who never got a name - went missing. He watched Ben, the monsters boy, die. He saw Allison, the rumor one, coerce her way onto movie sets and do exactly what Klaus said she would, all those years ago. He knew what Klaus was doing through that time, getting high off his ass and slacking, but with Reginald as his dad he couldn’t blame him. The normal one never popped up, but the strong one - Luther did, and the one with impeccable aim - Diego, was a teen favorite for  _ years.  _

He never dropped out of his obsessions, even long after the Umbrella Academy dropped out of view and Reginald died. He knew these people, and he knew his friend Klaus especially, but he couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even meet them - how could he? He was an elderly vet bordering on homelessness for years, he barely had enough money to keep himself alive. 

No, he wasn’t nervous. Or scared. Or anything of the sort, absolutely not.

He always did frequent that one bar, of course. The one with the photo of him with his squad, with Klaus and Dave side by side and everyone else surrounding them. Getting drunk was his hobby just behind The Umbrella Academy, but at least alcohol and pool at a veterans bar drew less questions than obsessing over a children’s superhero group. 

One day, one especially sunny and boring day, he’d been there, sipping a glass of amber whiskey that shone like ambrosia in the light, and staring at the photo on the wall like Klaus must’ve at the ghosts that had actually been there. Too late he hadn’t known the truth way back then. 

The youngest man they’d seen in there had walked in, grabbed a drink and staggered over to the picture, blocking Jakes view. He didn’t mind much - it wasn’t really his business what went on in that bar. He wasn’t a regular - not really, but even at the ripe old age of 70 he still visited sometimes. 

Then, the kid had been bowing his head and throwing back the liquor like it was his lifeline, and his shaking hands had dragged across the photo in some sort of gesture, and someone else had walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. 

He’d flinched like he really  _ was  _ a veteran, but only turned to the side a little to talk to the man. Jake was out of earshot, but he knew that Connor was gonna kick him out, just like he did with any other kid that came stumbling in here looking for a cheap drink or a free story. Then, the young man had turned around all the way. 

It was Klaus.

He looked exactly the way he had the day they’d found his body out there, to the T. Hair tugged this way and that, eyes sunken and red, cheeks gaunt and hollow, the spark in him lost. 

When his face came into view, Jake had launched up from his seat, entire body trembling as he pushed Connor out of the way and stared right into the eyes of his oldest friend, clutching his shoulders in a death grip.

“Uhh….” Klaus stared at Jake, not a sliver of recognition in his gaze. “What’s up?”

Jake laughs abruptly, eyes wide and brighter than they had been for years. Klaus just stared harder, confusion written all over his face. “Klaus,” Jake says, as if he’s talking to a ghost and the whole world at once. “Klaus, you piece of shit, it’s Jake!”

Then, his eyes widen in disbelief and Klaus chokes on a half sob-half laugh, and they’re hugging like old friends because that’s what they  _ are -  _ and he doesn’t care that Connor looks murderous and Evans looks hateful, he’s grinning like a madman into the shoulder of the dumbass storyteller who was so obviously too naive and too scared to be out there with them, even though Jake knew that at 20 he wasn’t much of a experienced soldier either.

“Jake, you’re still alive, holy shit!” says Klaus, laughing and still sniffling like a baby, and Jake refuses to admit that he is too. 

“Of course I am, but -“ he shoves Klaus away. “How are you?!” Now, his gaze is fierce, and angry, and he sees Klaus shrink under his steely eyes.

He laughs nervously, eyeballing the exit. “You see… I wasn’t exactly lying about my stories?”

“Obviously!” replies Jake, rolling his eyes. 

“Jeez, grandpa, let me talk would ya!” He glares at Klaus, and gestures for him to continue. “I travelled back in time from the old here and now. I know - it’s insane. And - and then I found you idiots and stayed. Then…” he gets quiet, and Jake pretends he doesn’t see the tears roll down Klaus’s cheeks as they both hold a moment of silence. “Then, D- Dave… died, and I couldn’t handle it… yknow, is being as close of friends as we were and all-“

“You were the most obviously gay out of any of us,” Jake deadpans, drawing a dry laugh out of Klaus.

“Ok, I know but we tried to hide… didn’t know who in our squad would support and who would just shoot us.” Jake nods in understanding - he’d realized his own bi identify a few weeks after discovering Klaus’s gay one. “I couldn’t take it… and so I shot myself, as you may know,” he says, his voice getting smaller and smaller as he goes.

“But turns out God doesn’t like me too much, the damn child!” Now his voice is louder again, and he’s animated like how he always was when he was telling his “stories,” and Jake feels the familiar rush of fondness he had for Klaus.

“She’s a real bugger to talk to.” Klaus nods to himself, as if reaffirming the fact. “And so she kicked me out and I was back, on that airplane and staring at Dave’s corpse and so I opened my briefcase and  _ poof!”  _ He makes jazz hands, eyes wide. “I was back in 2019 again!” 

Jake laughs again, harder, and claps Klaus on the back. “I always knew you were a strange one, but didn’t know even God thought you were weird!”

Then, as Klaus laughs out his agreement, knife man - Diego, walks up to them and glares at Jake. “What are you doing with my brother?” he says, and the fierce protectiveness in his voice is palpable. 

“He never told you about me?” He asks, glancing over at Diego and chuckling. “I’m Jake. Me and Klaus go way back.” Klaus echos him with an emphasizing and goofy tone, and Jake holds a hand out for Diego to shake. 

Suspiciously, Diego takes it, eyeballing him until their hands are free.

“Y'know Diego… I think there’s a lot we need to explain,” says Klaus, always stating the obvious. 

Jake knows then, at that moment, as they start to walk from the bar and gain more and more quizzical glances from the other veterans, that things might actually be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> So.... tell me what you thought! Drop me a comment or a kudo!


End file.
